SLASH Featured Poet No. 2: Ariel Chu

Welcome to the featured poet series at SLASH! In this series, we interview spoken word artists of any age, any background, from anywhere in the world. We feature established poets alongside students and writers who are just beginning to hone their spoken word skills. Read on to learn about a brilliant writer and member of the HASH staff, Ariel Chu!

photograph by Sam Jeong

Name: Ariel Chu
Age: 18
Location: Eastvale, California


1. How did you first get involved with spoken word?

Though I've loved poetry since elementary school, I didn't get involved in spoken word until  college. A confluence of forces helped me to fall in love with the medium: my involvement in theatre, an impulsive decision to join my school's spoken word club, and the fortune of meeting other writers who had experience in the field. Before then, my only exposure to spoken word was through YouTube videos and the occasional high school poetry slam. It took me a while to realize that I could be an active participant!


2. What themes commonly feature in your poetry? How do you use the medium to express identity?

Poetry is a place of heightened emotion for me, a medium where the feelings I internalize around others finds a sort of cathartic expression. As a result, the subjects I end up writing about are dramatic to the point of being somewhat overwrought. There's the typical young adult angst--love, insecurity, idolizing people who are irresistibly toxic. But spoken word also provides an ideal platform for talking about problematic issues and making them resonate with an audience, and I've recently found that it's a great outlet for talking about my identity. As an Asian-American woman, I've faced no shortage of doubt about my ability to write well, engage in creative work, and succeed in the performing arts. I've grown to use spoken word as a platform not only for sorting through emotions, but also for addressing and dispelling some misconceptions about who I am. As a result, my work has turned a bit more political lately, dealing with the barriers that I've had to overcome as someone who doesn't fit the preconceived notion of who a "writer" should be.


3. How would you describe your style?

Having been involved in both writing and theatre, I love that spoken word is a chance to merge the best of those two mediums. Most of the poetry I write follows a rhyme scheme, and spoken word is an ideal platform for conveying the sense of rhythm, momentum, and musicality I enjoy. I'm also working on bringing elements of theatricality and storytelling to my performance--time will tell how that works out! Overall, I'd like to say that my works have a sense of flow and rhythm to them, a kind of sing-songiness that delivers unexpected, emphatic punches.


4. What sets spoken word apart from other forms of writing and performance?

Writing and most performing arts seem to hold the audience at an arm's length--authors speak to their readers only through words on a page, while actors and dancers have to exist in a world apart from the people watching them. But spoken word doesn't shy away from human interaction so much as it thrives off of the dialogue between the poet and the audience. A poem becomes a conversation, and a performance becomes inclusive. It's a much more personal and vulnerable form of art.


5. What inspires you?

I'm inspired by passionate emotions, thought-provoking conversations, social justice, powerful people, and larger-than-life beauty. I'm particularly enamored by the romance of deep space, the sea, and the desert.


6. Who are your favorite spoken word artists?

I've recently discovered a fondness for Franny Choi--"Floating, Brilliant, Gone" is beautiful both when read and performed. I admit to being new to the larger spoken word scene, though, so I've yet to discover a definite favorite.


7. Anything else you'd like to share about your experience? Any advice?

Don't allow others to stifle your inspiration or discourage you from your ambitions--if you can't believe in your own work, there's no reason to expect that anyone else should. Instead, use the doubt of others as fuel for your dreams. Success is the greatest revenge, and your persistence can inspire an entire slew of young poets who are in a similar place of self-doubt.



AMERICAN INVENTION by Ariel Chu

My name is Ariel.

I'm a tiny, fragile thing. My skin reeks of the color
Of anemic, washed-out sunshine. My roots are LA,
but still they ask me, "You're from China?" So I turn to them and say
That I am, and always will be, an American invention.

I spent most of my childhood adhering to convention.
When they value you for perfect grades and give you vast attention
Just for being nice and quiet and a paragon of silence
Then you learn to shut your mouth and give up all creative license

So they like you.

Yes, my mom said "people like you
Don't get work published in bookstores; no, your last name is abrasive
And the media erases
all the people with our faces
There are never special cases when it comes to people like you."

And I wondered if she's right, too.
Since I've always had to fight to
Justify my need to write to
Almost everyone I meet.

But I'm no precious fortune cookie:
Yellow and brittle, harmless and little
Break open the middle and read what you like
Protract all my sweat while you retract my rights.

And I'm not a dead white man
And I am not your Amy Tan
And I am not the robot chemist mathematician people think I am.

My name is Ariel.

My claim to creativity is no point of contention.
That is, and always will be, an American invention.


[audio coming soon]


Abigail Rampone, SLASH Columnist
slashcolumn@gmail.com

Continue

SLASH Featured Poet No. 1: Zoë Riell

Welcome to the featured poet series at the SLASH spoken word column! In this series, we will interview spoken word artists of any age, any background, from anywhere in the world. We feature established performers alongside students and writers who are just beginning to hone their spoken word skills. Read on to learn about our first featured poet, Zoë Riell!

Name: Zoë Riell
Age: 17
Location: Poultney, VT, USA

1. How did you first get involved with spoken word?

I was introduced to spoken word poetry in the first Creative Writing class I participated in - before that, I had dabbled with it briefly, but it wasn't until I was given an assignment to write something for the specific purpose of being read aloud that I really started to delve into it with any kind of seriousness.


2. What themes commonly feature in your poetry? How do you use the medium to express identity?

Lately I've noticed that many of my recent poems have featured the longing for fantasy - the desire for the un-ordinary and un-real in everyday life, and how that affects how someone sees the world. More often than not, I'll have a 'protagonist,' if you will, within my poems who, somehow or other, begins a metaphorical journey to go beyond the three dimensions and see what else is out there. In that respect, I guess you could say that my poems are deeply rooted in curiosity. The one thing about spoken word that I can appreciate for personal purposes is how open it is to emotion - the line break, the carefully-placed punctuation, the specific inflection of just one word when read aloud - each of those factors is paramount to being able to express what I want to say in the method I want to convey it.


3. How would you describe your style?

I would describe my style as surrealist - I enjoy taking my readers and listeners to places where they may not feel comfortable or at home, while still maintaining that human element as a lifeline that keeps them invested in the piece.


4. What sets spoken word apart from other forms of writing and performance?

Because it is so vast a medium! With spoken word poetry there is no right or wrong way to go about it - you might write it with blunt vocabulary, leaving nothing to the imagination, or you could shroud your piece in mystery and leave the readers and listeners guessing. The spoken part lends a lot of aid to both sides - there is nothing like hearing something read aloud by the author - it's a glimpse into how they see it, what they were thinking when they wrote it, what the poem means to them. That's why I will always return to spoken word again and again and again.


5. What inspires you?

Reading, without a doubt. I tend to gravitate towards surreal, metaphorically dense & poetically written fiction, and generally speaking if I find one I enjoy very much, at least four or five poems will come of the experience I had while reading them. Also, too, various media forms have all inspired me at one point or another - I've had poems I'm proud of stem from TV shows, from movies, from video games, from a verse in a song. I'm very open to inspiration coming from all sorts of sources.


6. Who are your favorite poets or spoken word artists?

I've have to say Donald Hall - I was given a chapbook by him by my Creative Writing teacher because she thought I might find a connection within his work, and I'm very grateful she did. He has a specific style in which to the casual eye he is merely narrating the everyday, but underneath he manages to capture intense, complex emotions and experiences. It's a feat I've always envied, and I've devoured his work in the hopes of figuring out just what makes him tick.


7. Anything else you'd like to share about your experience? Any advice?

Just write! I'm a notorious perfectionist, and so I find myself making excuses not to sit down and write everyday because I don't have proper inspiration, because it'll be shit, because it'll only be a line and it'll waste paper, etc etc. But what I'm trying to beat into my brain right now is that even if the first draft of something scribbled on the fly is something that should never see the light of day, it will still sit in the back of your brain the next time you sit down - maybe that line break that was decent, those two words you liked, the title you thought was clever, will inspire you to write something glorious the next time!

No Glass by Zoë Riell 

There’s no room for glass in here –

only the labeled shears to shorten

the ribs, the bellows

for the cavernous lungs, and the towering

dumbbells larger than I that I

attempt

to lift sometimes.

No room, not ever,

lest the blood be drawn

out from the woodwork.

I have welded the hinges to the muscle

of the mind—

no doors to my home, no welcome

mats spread for you.

I live with mementos,

memories, meticulous

mindsets,

but no glass.

No glass in here.

Abigail Rampone, SLASH Columnist

slashcolumn@gmail.com

Continue